bizflawless
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AN Australian man has refused to remove from his website a tasteless computer game based on the Virginia Tech uni massacre.
The game, which follows Cho Seung-hui's killing spree, has sparked a wave of criticism.
Creator Ryan Lambourn, 21, of Sydney, says he won't remove the game from his own website or seek to have it removed from amateur game-sharing site Newgrounds.com
Called V-Tech Rampage, the game can be freely downloaded from either site.
It has caused a stir on a number of blogs and online news sites around the world.
Mr Lambourn, who is unemployed, said he created the game for "laughs". The game was supposed to provide an insight into the killer's mindset.
"What he did was caused by something," he said.
"From what I do know about him, from his plays, from what he did to prepare for it, he's very human, fragile.
"From what I can tell he's probably having a hard home life."
Mr Lambourn said he would not take down the game under any circumstances, including after a request from the victims' families.
"I'm afraid not," he said.
He said he empathised with the killer and that he, like Cho, had been a victim of abuse and bullying at high school.
Cho shot 32 students and teachers last month before turning a gun on himself.
Mr Lambourn backpedalled on previous demands for money in exchange for the game's deletion, describing the ransom as a joke.
He had said on his website that he would only remove V-Tech Rampage from the Newgrounds website if he received a $US1000 "donation". For $US3000 he would apologise for the stunt.
He said no one had taken him up on his offer.
"That's exactly the point I was trying to prove," Mr Lambourn said.
Mr Lambourn was born in Australia but grew up in the US before returning to Australia when 14.
He said he left school in the eighth grade having been bullied and abused at several institutions in Texas, Maine, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.
Mr Lambourn described himself as a self-taught animator who was supported financially by his mother who still lives in the US.
He said he had previously composed music for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin last year.
V-Tech Rampage resembles another production that followed the Columbine massacre in 1999, in which two students killed 12 people before turning their weapons on themselves in a shooting spree at the Colorado high school.
Cant believe he made a game into this but im sure some of you will want to play it
